


until you believe it, or maybe remember it

by 26stars



Series: Framework Verse [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (sort of), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, First Time, Kissing, The Framework Universe (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 03:44:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20351851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Daisy takes May on a tour of the life they have outside the Framework, a life May doesn't rememberFramework, follow up to 'get away' fic from last year but can be read without it. Fills AoS Smut Week prompts: kissing, first times, and the Framework





	until you believe it, or maybe remember it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quakeskyedaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quakeskyedaisy/gifts).

> For Ella, some more Framework Maydaisy for you :)

It took a little while to get everything sorted out with this new crew—to assure the people in charge that this woman with the Hydra symbol on both shoulders is in fact on their side, is in fact trustworthy, does in fact feel unequivocally upset with her former organization and will do anything to help take them down… Mack is understandably still upset and steering clear of them both, and every new person to cross their path in the base is giving May the stinkeye at the sight of her uniform. The former Hydra agent has already surrendered the body cam footage that will hopefully expose Hydra’s dark underbelly, and those filling the vacuum after the Patriot’s death are trying to make a plan for getting it out there while waiting for Trip and Jemma to return from their mission. Now, Daisy is wandering through the halls, looking at everything that is familiar…but different.

This Playground is not the same place she and Jemma left behind in smoldering ruin days ago. Of course it hasn’t had explosives set off in the airlock, but more than that, this isn’t the place that held their stories. Daisy is staring absently into the training room that is wrong in every way (_where are the mats?—who put these shelves in here?—what happened to the bricks I accidently broke with my powers that one time…)_ when she becomes aware of another displaced person drifting through the halls.

Confusion is not a good look on Melinda May.

She’s got her arms wrapped stiffly around her ribs, seeming unsure what to do with her hands, or the rest of herself. The bewildered look on her face is foreign to Daisy, making her realize that she’s never seen May without something to do…or someone to follow.

_Soon we’ll be back where we belong. Soon…_

“We’ve been looking for this place for years,” the woman says when Daisy comes closer, avoiding looking at the ugly green emblem still on her shoulders.

“This was SHIELD’s base in the real world too,” Daisy says quietly, passing one hand softly over May’s arm, feeling the arrested flinch beneath the woman’s skin. May won’t look at her, so Daisy takes the lead.

“This is where you trained me,” she says, pointing into what should have been the training room. “You taught me tai chi, you taught me how to fight, how to hold my own even before I had powers…”

“I was your S.O. there,” May says sounding slightly amazed as she repeats this fact Daisy had imparted during their conversation in the car.

Daisy smiles at the memories that float up, of a time when she was still called Skye and the state of SHIELD was not so different than the fledgling group in these halls now.

“Yeah. Ward was my S.O. when I first joined your team, but then he turned out to be Hydra, and you took over.”

“Ironic,” May says tonelessly, looking anywhere but at Daisy.

“Were you my S.O. in this world?” Daisy asks, fighting the urge to touch her again.

May nods once, turning over one shoulder and starting to wander away, but Daisy follows her.

“What was I like?” she asks, wondering what kind of person she’d have had to be to have joined up with Hydra here.

May faces forward, but Daisy catches a small smirk. “Tough. You’d been through hell. Hydra put you through more. And you still came out with something in you that no one could touch.”

They pass a storage room, the former firing range, the common area that has become an infirmary…

“Did you choose to train me, or did I ask you to?” Daisy asks.

May shakes her head. “You were assigned to me.”

“Was I any good?”

The woman purses her lips. “A good agent or a good person? I only was responsible for one of those things.”

They’ve turned down a quieter hall, one that was a row of dormitories in the real Playground. Curious, Daisy reaches over and tries one of the knobs. The door creaks open to reveal a room crowded with artillery.

“Come on,” she says, leading May further down the hall. At the right door, Daisy turns the knob and pushes it open.

When she flips on the light, she sees that this room still has the spare remains of a bedroom set in it, though it hardly looks lived in. Daisy looks for the familiar things that were once here and finds none, none except for the woman stepping into the room next to her.

“This was where we lived,” she explains, looking over at May, who surveys the room expressionlessly. “You and I, ever since we got to this base.”

“You and I were…something?” Her tones tells Daisy that she still finds this too impossible to believe.

Daisy slips her hand into May’s. “We _are_ something. Something good.”

May meets her eyes briefly, but then she’s stepping away from her, though she doesn’t leave the room.

“You had feelings for me here too, though?” Daisy presses, trying to pry back the shell Hydra has put over this woman she once loved. “And we never got together?”

“You were with someone,” May says simply, shaking her head. “And I was a department head. I wasn’t allowed to have any relationships.”

_Yikes._

“That wasn’t all, though, was it?” Daisy says quietly, reading the self-loathing that May hasn’t stopped radiating yet.

This time, May doesn’t answer.

Longing makes her chest go tight, and Daisy steps closer again. “You would look like this sometimes in the beginning, when you thought no one was watching. Back before we were together, I would just stare at you and wish that I understood why, and wish you could see yourself the way I saw you.”

“What about after?” May says softly, her eyes cautiously meeting Daisy’s again.

“After we got together?” Daisy clarifies, and May nods. “Well after that, I’d tell you as many ways as I could think of, hoping one day you might believe me.”

“Believe what?” May says, and Daisy brings hands gently to May’s elbows, maintaining the contact until she feels May’s grip on herself loosen, feels her open up cautiously. When her hands appear, Daisy slips her own hands into them and squeezes gently.

“Believe that you’re not a monster, and that you still, that you always did, deserve something good.”

May’s gaze drops again, and Daisy sees her swallow. Heart squeezing with tender longing once more, Daisy takes a small step closer until she’s standing nearly against May and brings her mouth near the woman’s ear.

“Can I show you one way that I would try?”

May doesn’t say anything, but she does raise her head bravely, so Daisy leans in and kisses her.

This one different than their kiss in the car—that one had been soaked in relief and exhaustion, made reckless by their awareness of the limited amount of time they had before they might be caught and locked up again. This time, Daisy can feel the walls still standing inside this woman, the ones May has tried to hastily throw back up between then and now… It doesn’t scare Daisy. But it does make her change tactics a little.

She takes it slow this time, soft, gentle kisses to the woman’s lips, biding her time until she feels May finally, cautiously respond. When the woman pulls her hands free so that she can pull Daisy closer by her waist, Daisy slips her own hands around May’s ribs, holds her while she kisses down her jaw to her neck, where she scrapes her teeth gently along the soft skin there. May sighs into it, an echo of a whimper barely heard in her throat, and Daisy distantly wonders how long it’s been since this woman has been touched with any kindness in this universe…

One of May’s hands tangles in her hair, guiding Daisy’s face back up for a different kind of kiss, one that feels far less afraid than any before it. Daisy’s fingers skate back to the front of May’s vest, tripping over the Hydra pin as they seek the fasteners, ready to strip away the last layers of _wrong_ between them.

“I want to take this off,” she whispers when they break apart for air. May’s eyes drift open, and Daisy eyes the swift return of uncertainty, the fear that threatens to send May staggering back from the edge she’s allowed herself to approach. Slipping her hands up to May’s neck, Daisy cradles her face and kisses her forcefully, reassuringly, again. “Let me take the uniform off,” she gasps against May’s lips. “It’s not who you are…”

May’s hands suddenly turn strong and push her back, and Daisy catches a flash in her eyes as the woman brushes past her. Daisy’s stomach swoops in panic for just a moment, fearing the worst, but inside of walking out, May only shoves the door closed.

_We should probably lock it,_ Daisy thinks, but then May is stripping off her thin, armored vest and letting it fall to the floor behind her, an action that drives every other thought from Daisy’s mind.

Closing the distance between them in two determined steps, Daisy grabs the hem of May’s shirt with its hideous green emblems on the shoulders and pulls it unceremoniously up over her head. May raises her arms to let it come off easier, and Daisy balls the garment up before throwing it into the darkest corner of the room.

When her eyes go back to May, she sees a surprising shyness feint into her expression, a look Daisy hasn’t seen in so long, not since way back before…

Daisy pulls May back into her arms and kisses her soundly, hoping to drive the uncertainty away for good, or at least out of this room for now. One hand slides up the woman’s back, absorbing the texture of skin she hasn’t gotten to touch in weeks, while the other hand smooths over May’s bare stomach, distantly registering that some of her scars are missing…

“I love you,” she whispers in between kisses. “I know you don’t believe it, but I’ll keep on saying it until you do. I love you, Melinda May…”

May’s hands turn strong and push Daisy back again, but this time she’s going with her, backing her up until Daisy’s legs meet the bed behind her and she folds down onto it, May coming smoothly on top of her…

“Show me,” she woman whispers, her eyes locked on Daisy’s. For the first time, she looks like the person Daisy has been looking for—hopeful, fearless, and ready for battle.

Daisy pulls her down into another kiss, one that finally feels like a memory, and leads the charge.


End file.
